Stimulus Plan Has Critics on Both Sides of the Aisle

Jess Bravin reports on Obama’s economic-stimulus plan. Some leading Democratic and Republican lawmakers criticized aspects of President Barack Obama ’s $825 billion economic-stimulus plan. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) said there were elements of the Obama plan he could support, but taken together, not enough to win his vote. “If it’s the plan that I see today, put me down in the ‘no’ column,” he told NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “I think a lot of Republicans will vote ‘no,’ because they see this as a lot of wasteful Washington spending, padding the bureaucracy and doing nothing to help create jobs and preserve jobs.” Senate Budget Committee chairman, Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota, meanwhile, said Obama’s plan doesn’t go far enough. “Economists of almost every stripe — and I’ve had many of them before the Budget Committee: Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, progressives, — ... (link)